Talk:The Cantos

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	The Cantos is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on April 5, 2005.
Article Milestones Date Process Result February 27, 2005 Peer review Reviewed March 11, 2005 Featured article candidate Promoted Current Status: Featured article

	Literature Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Books. To participate, you can edit the article attached to this page. You can discuss the Project at its talk page.
FA	This article has been rated as FA-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

This article has been selected for Version 0.5 and the next release version of Wikipedia. This LangLit article has been rated FA-Class on the assessment scale.

• This article is part of WikiProject Poetry. See that page for further information.

Start date. I knew that 1915 is mentioned as the inception; but a reference says that Pound essentially made a fresh start in 1922, and wrote quite fluently after that. He wrote a canto every two or three months for the following decade. So I was trying to say this, without getting bogged down in the chronology. Evidently he wrote on after 1959, too.

Charles Matthews 17:51, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi: I changed this date to harmonise with work I was doing on Modernist poetry in English. I'll check the references and come back to this, but in general terms, I think you're right. Maybe an edit to the text to clarify? Filiocht 08:27, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Sure. And I'm sure the article could be expanded somewhat. Charles Matthews 09:16, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I hope to give a hand with this article (and to improve Ezra Pound) once I've done what I can with Modernist poetry in English. By the way, thanks for starting this, it killed a number of red links in articles I worked on before! Filiocht 09:54, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Lead section 2 Lorendo di Medici? 3 Broken Image Link? 4 ACB/ABC 5 Ehm.. Missing title? 6 Someone left a note 7 Needs a better summary

[edit] Lead section

Just a note: I tend to feel that this is a bit too anti-Pound, to the point where the casual reader might ask why bother create the article if the poetry is so indefensible. Would anyone agree? Filiocht 13:47, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

The obvious answer would be that the work is evidently notable; which is why it is here. The POV here possibly does err; since the cited sources are very clearly pro-Pound, it is a little difficult for me to see where the middle ground might lie. Perhaps I'll look again at The Trouble with Genius (1994) by Bob Perelman, which I read a little while ago. My ideas on what Pound was up to were probably formed more by that, than by the cited references (which I haven't read). I also read most of the Humphrey Carpenter biography, which I thought was very good in giving an impression of the man; but it is not academic. Charles Matthews 14:05, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I started re-reading the Cantos last night, one at a time, and will start a kind of bullet-point summary, now that the knotty question of the poem's beginning has been discussed. Obviously, this will take some time, but I have a couple of the cited refs at home, and that should help. You'd enjoy The Pound Era, I think. Filiocht 14:24, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Lorendo di Medici?

I don't know much about Pound or the Cantos, nor the Medicis, so I haven't changed it, but I assume Lorendo di Medici really is Lorenzo de' Medici? Tobyox 23:06, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Broken Image Link?

The image of John Adams doesn't seem to load properly.

Loading fine for me. Filiocht 14:21, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

And me. --Theo (Talk) 14:47, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ACB/ABC

A. A. Live man goes down into world of dead.
C. B. 'The repeat in history.'
B. C. The 'magic moment' or moment of metamorphosis, bust through from quotidian into 'divine or permanent world.' Gods, etc.

I don't understand these letters. Rich Farmbrough 12:49, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ehm.. Missing title?

Cantos I – XVI "whose war memories the poem includes a passage from (in French)." From what, exactly?
Rich Farmbrough 13:00, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Someone left a note

User:Hippopotamus left a note at the new user log that relates to this article [1]. I'll put this note here and on Talk:Ezra Pound. — Trilobite (Talk) 6 July 2005 15:17 (UTC)

(Also posted on Talk:Ezra Pound.) Trilobite, I don't think Hippopotamus is alleging plagiarism, but simply proper use of his book, which he wants to see referenced. I've left a note on Hippopotamus' talk page, telling him that Filiocht is the author of The Cantos and also (I think) the main presence behind Ezra Pound. Filiocht is on holiday, but likely to return quite soon, so I asked if Hippopotamus would like to tell me more about it, so I can take care of referencing his work and anything else that arises, or would rather wait for Filiocht. Bishonen | talk 6 July 2005 16:37 (UTC)

(Main discussion over at Talk:Ezra Pound.) In case there was any doubt, I'd like to say here that I would not even think of accusing Filiocht of plagiarism, and was just passing on the message. — Trilobite (Talk) 19:56, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Needs a better summary

I'm sure the detailed discussions of the sections are very erudite. I'm not familiar with the poem, so I can't really say. But the the introductary paragraphs lack a summary of what the poem is *about*.

Compare with articles on The Waste Land:

dealing with the decline of civilization and the impossibility of recovering meaning in life.

or The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The poem itself tells the inner feelings of a man in love who realises that his aspirations and his outlook on life are much deeper than those of the rest of the people. He feels the need to stir those around him, to make them conscious of the seriousness of life and of their frivolity, but at the same time he fears being rejected and mocked. Another thematic element is the subject of ageing: the speaker contemplates his wearied heart (vis-à-vis the mornings and afternoons he has known), the repetitions inherent in life causing his physical deterioration (a bald spot, weak teeth making him fear food), and the consuming idea of an impending death.

I came to this article looking for a brief explanation of the subject or theme of the poem, and am still wondering... Jeffr 16:36, 7 April 2006 (UTC)